Many people don’t realize Griffin Technology, one of the most visible makers of iPod and iPhone accessories, is local to Nashville, Tennessee. They also probably don’t realize the company has been churning out iPhone / iPod Touch applications since apple opened the app store.

One of the most amusing of these apps is the FAIL Maker, which allows users to create their own FAIL pictures that can be upload to FAILblog.org. Griffin’s Manager of Software Development Don Messerli was kind enough to answer some questions about the app and the future of app development for the company…

1) How was the FAIL Maker app conceived?FAIL Maker was developed completely independently of FAIL Blog. One of our product development people, Rick Kennedy, came up with the idea after noticing there wasn’t a way to make FAILs on iPhone.

2) Are there any updates planned for the app and will there be additional text added in future versions?Yes. An update is currently in the works that will bring, among other things, custom captions. We are looking forward to an API that will allow direct posting of FAIL compositions to FAIL Blog itself.

3) This is the seventh App Griffin has published in the app store. Should we expect more development in the future?There will definitely be more apps in Griffin’s future in many categories on the app store.

4) Forgive me if this is just my own perception, but Griffin has primarily been a company that does accessories. What’s the rational behind switching gears and developing for the iPhone?Griffin hasn’t switched gears. We are still the premier accessory company for iPod and iPhone. Having some extremely talented software engineers on our staff, it was inevitable that we would target the iPhone as soon as Apple released the SDK.